Collisions
by sydfan
Summary: Sydney’s fist collides with Lauren’s face; Vaughn’s worlds collide


Title: Collisions  
  
Author: Sydfan  
  
Rating: G  
  
Spoilers: through S3.9 Conscious  
  
Summary: Sydney's fist collides with Lauren's face; Vaughn's worlds collide.  
  
'Ship:V/L, S/V  
  
Category: Angst, romance  
  
Distribution: Cover Me, FF.net, others please ask  
  
Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me; they just visit my TV and computer screens.  
  
COLLISIONS  
  
As he watched Lauren get into the van that would take her back to the NSC, back to Lindsey, back to a dangerous situation, Michael Vaughn knew he had a lot of thinking to do. He felt disgusted with himself for his feeble protests at the very idea of Sydney roughing up his wife. He'd known they were right of course. Lauren couldn't go back with only Campbell's bruise on her face and claim she'd been captured by a ruthless terrorist group known for its skill with knives. In his mind it was the same as Sydney stabbing him with a knife to save his life - a hideous necessity, a sacrifice for a greater good. So much of his life seemed grounded in that premise. His head knew it was right, but his heart decried the actions.  
  
Sydney had been the logical one to do it. Not because he thought it would afford her any pleasure; he wanted to shudder at that thought. No, because the other options were worse. He could never, ever raise his hand against Lauren. It just wasn't in him. Though he had long since left behind school yard notions of the rightness or wrongness of "hitting a girl", he simply could not strike his own wife. He had vowed to love, honor and protect her. And in this screwed up, twisted spy life, right now that meant allowing her to be roughed up a little. It made him uncomfortable.  
  
Jack and Sloane were both stone cold killers. He knew the mental images of Jack Bristow slapping Lauren around would begin to eat away at the newly regained respect he had for the man. So he was out. And Sloane, the evil bastard, would.not.touch.her. Ever. For any reason. So that left Sydney.  
  
He couldn't bear to watch. As they left the room to go do it, Vaughn found himself pacing further and further from the door. He wanted to clap his sweaty palms over his ears and hum a tune just to drown out the possible sound of a blow, a thud, or a whimper. He had had quite enough of that sitting on coms during all those missions with Sydney. He had winced and felt his mouth go dry the first time he had heard her take a kick to the stomach. He had felt it in his own gut - as well as heard -- the breath going out of her and the sickening sound of her body hitting the hard floor. It had seemed a lifetime until he heard a ragged gasp as she desperately tried to suck air back into her deflated lungs. He had felt such relief flood his body that he didn't realize his own breathing was ragged too. He shook the image out of his mind.  
  
What was wrong with him? He should be focused on Lauren right now. She would need him in a few minutes, need him to hold her, soothe her, tend to her bruises and cuts. He knew about those things. Being Sydney's handler had kept his first aid skills sharp. Far more often though, Syd had come to him seeking balm for her wounded spirit, her fractured feelings, her shattered hopes. He needed to believe he had offered her what she so desperately needed, that he had been able to care for her on so many levels. Lauren would need all of those things from him and more. In the last 24 hours she had learned her boss was a traitor, she had shot (and probably killed) a man, broken her husband's former lover out of federal custody, and was currently a fugitive. He smiled wryly. They had lived a lifetime today.  
  
He heard the warehouse door screech open. Turning, he saw Lauren slip through, head down, blonde curtain of hair hiding her face. He faltered for only a moment before striding to her side, forehead wrinkling furiously. Then his arms were around her and she had collapsed against his shoulder, quivering. Over her head, he looked for Sydney, almost afraid of what he might see in her face. Instead, he found her mirrored in a similar pose, safely in her father's arms. Fragments of emotion rolled over and through him: relief that she had taken no joy in administering the beating, concern for her emotional well-being, a whiff of jealousy that she had gone first to her father and not to him, several moments of guilt for even thinking of Syd as he held his wife, a shiver of alarm as Jack's dark eyes bored into him.Then he smoothed a hand over Lauren's hair and began to murmur gentle words of reassurance into her ear, his focus entirely on her, Sydney set aside - for now.  
  
Later  
  
He heard Brezell and the lovely but vague Kaya murmuring to one another inanely somewhere behind him. The smell of Facon still hung in the air. Vaughn knew he would never again look at real bacon without the memory of this entire surreal experience coming back to him in vivid detail. The exhaustion, the fear, confusion about his feelings for Sydney and for Lauren; ever-present dread in the pit of his stomach, his father's voice in the back of his head chiding him for throwing his career away for a woman he could never have. Stop it! Why was it that every thought eventually returned to the same worn track in his mind?  
  
Sydney. He had told himself so many lies since her return. But when she was taken into custody, when she faced real torture, what had begun as a crack in the wall of his resolve had become a widening breach. He did love Lauren, he knew that. Though their marriage was not yet a year old, he had given her what was left of his heart after Syd had disappeared. But ever since Sydney had returned from the dead, he found he needed to remind himself that love is a choice, a matter of the will, and not simply an emotion that may come or go on a whim or a chance.  
  
Working through the grief, he had found himself opening up to Weiss after a few late night beers and some self-pity. But when the words "soul mates" passed Eric's lips, Vaughn had recoiled. How could Sydney be his destiny if she was dead? It was a tragically romantic image - the young hero, the lost love. But he didn't want to be linked eternally to a dead woman. He wanted, eventually, to feel again. He had wanted, needed, to experience the stomach churning, giddy, desperate hope of deep feelings returned, the intensity of a first touch, a first kiss, a first night together. He had given so much already to the CIA. He refused to sacrifice his last hope of a normal life on the altar of duty.  
  
In some ways, he felt he was honoring Sydney's memory by actively seeking out just that. It was her dream and might have been his too, (when he allowed himself to dream) to live out their days quietly, joyfully together. He hadn't been ready to settle down to the picket fence and the minivan just yet, but the potential had certainly been there. It was hard to say sometimes which he mourned more: Sydney herself or the potential of a lifetime with her. As a spy she was brash, accomplished, and determined. As a woman she was openly emotional, sweet, and yet incredibly complex. It would have taken a lifetime to know her, a potential lifetime stolen away, missing, simply -- gone.  
  
And so instead of picnics in the woods, lazy Sunday mornings in bed, starlit walks, and soul revealing gazes with Sydney, he had lived them with Lauren. They had dated, found mutual friends, led regular lives, and made plans for someday. They had bought a house, argued over wallpaper and appliances, endured awkward silences, joyously reconnecting afterwards, basking in the affirmation of their love and the promise it held. It was all good. It was a natural progression. He had only to put in the time, make the effort, stay on course with the woman he had chosen, forsaking all others.  
  
Why then did his traitorous heart leap up in his chest when the call came? She was alive! An intolerable weight rolled from his heart, and with her all the visions for his future had sprung to life. Two realities collided.  
  
He was still checking for survivors.  
  
END 


End file.
